Fani aftermath: Death toll reaches 34, CM Patnaik announces three-pronged plan for affected districts

Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Sunday announced a three-pronged plan for distributing relief materials in districts affected by ‘Extremely Severe’ cyclonic storm Fani, which made landfall on Friday and ravaged parts of coastal Odisha. A total of 34 people have been killed so far, according to PTI.

The decision immediately attracted scepticism among his own senior bureaucrats as well as disaster management experts. Patnaik’s office sent out a series of tweets, which indicate the government has divided the five affected coastal districts into three zones — extremely severely affected, severely affected and moderately affected. These zones are to receive financial and material assistance in descending order. The CMO’s Twitter account announced: Puri and part of Khordha have been extremely severely affected. He (Naveen) announced Rs 2,000 and 50 kg of rice and polythene will be provided to all families covered under food security. The CM also announced that while Rs 1,000 and one month of additional quota of rice and polythene would be provided to families covered under food security in parts of Khordha which are severely affected, Jagatsinghpur, Cuttack and Kendrapara districts which are moderately affected will receive Rs 500 and one month additional quota of rice.

“Such highly targeted and differentiated forms of assistance create social and political problems. The CM, who had recently launched KALIA, an almost universal income assistance, should know that universal programmes work better than targeted programmes,” said a senior bureaucrat. Dr Biswanath Dash, a cyclone researcher affiliated with BITS Pilani, agreed. “If my house is completely destroyed in Cuttack and I have no food or money, how does it matter if my area as a whole is moderately affected?” he asked adding that the same problem had been identified in 2011 when Puducherry received more assistance than neighbouring Cuddalore after Cyclone Thane. The CMO tweeted: In other districts affected people will be provided one month additional pension, house building assistance of Rs 95,100 for fully damaged, Rs 5,200 for partially damaged, Rs 3,200 for minor damaged houses. Completely damaged houses to be rebuilt expeditiously. On Twitter CM @Naveen_Odisha also pledged that “loss of crops, animal resources and fisheries will be assessed and compensated for. Tree plantation will be taken up in mission mode after relief and restoration work is completed”. Meanwhile, relief and rehabilitation work started on a war footing.